1. Technical Field
The invention relates generally to sensing and identifying abnormalities in sheets being conveyed between storage and dispensing stations, and, more particularly, to automatic banking equipment wherein each bill in a paper money dispenser is monitored to identify single bills, multiple bills, overlapped bills, or folded bills as well as jammed bills, and the information is processed to control bill dispensing and accounting.
2. Background Art
A number of different systems have been used in the past for detecting conditions of sheets, such as paper money, currency bills, documents, etc. being conveyed, one by one, along a path of travel between source and delivery stations. In automatic banking equipment, for example, bills are transported along a conveyor from a source to an automatic teller station for dispensing. The bills must be counted along the line of travel so that the proper number of each bill denomination is ultimately dispensed to the customer.
During normal operation, the bills to be dispensed are spaced apart from each other along the conveyor. The presence of each bill at some point along the conveyor is monitored by any of several different types of detectors, such as thickness detectors that respond to the thickness of each bill, photoelectric sensors that respond to optical characteristics of the bill, conductance or capacitance sensors that respond to electrical characteristics and ultrasonic or pneumatic sensors that respond to bulk properties of the bill. Typically, such bill detecting apparatus have been incorporated into larger systems that respond to sensor generated data to identify single bills or double bills passing a detection point. Single, non-overlapped bills passing the detection point are counted to control dispensing such that the proper number of bills is dispensed to the customer and the appropriate account updated by the withdrawal amount. Double bills are counted as two bills and dispensed to the customer; if the double occurs during dispensing of the last bill, however, the bills are diverted and not counted. Bills that are folded or overlapped are diverted as suspicious bills since the equipment cannot identify with certainty the nature of the defect in normal bill flow. If the folded bill could be identified as a single bill rather than as, e.g., a torn bill, and if overlapped bills that might include folded-back portions could be identified as two bills, dispensing and accounting of these bills could be made. Bills identified as triple bills should be diverted and not dispensed. To optimize bill dispensing in automatic banking equipment, therefore, it is necessary to identify not only the presence of an abnormality in bill flow within a cash dispenser system but also to determine the particular type of abnormality so that proper action can be undertaken, i.e., dispense and account for the suspicious bills or divert the bills to storage.
One object of the invention, therefore, is to provide an improved method of and apparatus for detecting and identifying sheet spacing in a sheet conveying apparatus.
Another object is to provide a method of and apparatus for detecting and identifying bill flow in automatic banking equipment.
Another object is to provide a method of and apparatus for detecting and identifying overlapped or folded bills as well as single, properly spaced bills or double bills on a transport conveyor in an automatic cash dispenser.
Another object is to provide a method of and system for identifying single bills, double bills, triple bills and overlapped or folded bills as well as jammed bills in an automatic paper money dispenser.
Another object is to provide a method of and system for identifying single bills, double bills, triple or higher multiple bills and overlapped or folded bills as well as jammed bills in an automatic paper money dispenser, dispensing those bills considered dispensable according to predetermined criteria and diverting the remainder.